Unknown
by SnowEyes
Summary: [Permanent Hiatus] Something is ravaging Bayville. Forces beyond the control of others have been unleashed, unpreturbed by time, seeing, really, as it has no boundries at alll, and not even the Prof. is up for THIS one.
1. Prologue

**__**

Prologue

There was a window. A small one, curved upwards above her head, showing shadows cracked over the white sheets, torn with holes and spread across the floor. They had tried to make her move, unto the thick, soggy thing that creaked when sat upon, moaning through the rusty springs. Eyes hid under there, yes, eyes, big open yellow ones that stared at her and made her choke. They'd laughed at her, made her move; she'd dragged, and ran. And They had come for her, again, locking her up in There, and locking the door, and laughing while she screamed and while her eyes turned white and red, with hot liquid seeping through, and the window watched all.

  
  
Clouds showed through, through the walls; the shadows drifted across her face, her mouth open, her bound feet tugged tight. The shadows were inverted, of course; scratched this way and that, miscalculated drops dripping on through the crevices made by the bars. 

And she laughed, because they wouldn't get her. They couldn't.


	2. Forgotten

Chapter 1: Forgotten

"YAHHH WHOO!"

Whooping in delight, he sprung onto the railing and skidded, the wood screeching on the cold, wet cement, the vibrations traveling up through his legs and into the rest of his body, creating sensations that made him grin and fall into the familiar vibes. He kicked off, gripping the edge and flipping, kicking the tail in the air and catching it with his left foot before the whole of the trick had ended. He landed gracefully, holding the railing lightly on impact, laughing aloud with delight as the final shakings ebbed through his feet.

The mutant known as Evan Daniels spun around, running his hands through his hair, itching at the back of his scalp as he started walking back through the darkened tunnel. He'd just _knew_, the minute that Callistro took him through the passage way to get to the lightened tunnels that divided one part of the city from another, that the railings would be absolutely perfect for the tricks that had made his skating career worthwhile, all of it. The railings were far enough from the wall that they could be reached easily with one hand, and they created the little sparks of fire that burned and ebbed out slowly in the dark beneath them. 

He didn't have a board, of course; he'd left it behind, like everything else he'd had to leave. Stun had offered to provide a distraction while he'd run in and gotten a trunk pulled together, but he had stopped her, knowing that the Institute was too dangerous when guarded -- especially when filled with his former classmates. He'd made a makeshift one for the moment; a whittled board out of the draft that brew down the sewers, cut with sharp spikes and cut diagonally. The wheels had been the hard part -- but lucky for him, the tunnels ran into the garbage disposal plant (they were guarded against the acids -- thank you, Weld), and he'd been able to polish off a few there. 

Feeling the pull of the moment, he noticed the tides of the slosh that lined the inner passages was riding up on his torn sneakers and winced again, then slowly let way to a small smile. He was being ridiculous -- acting the same way he had when he had first allowed himself to look down. It didn't bother him any more, really. The sludge just was another thing to add on to his list of "things to get used to" -- and he'd checked it off, along with the other members of that particular list. 

He was happy for the small ways that he noticed that his body got used to the pulls; the plates on his face and body were softer than they'd been when they'd first emerged, _painfully_. It was probably due to the humid atmosphere and the dark, where they weren't hassled by the blinding rays of the sun and damaged the glands of the bone-structure.

Blinding rays. He'd have to get used to that, too. He was beginning to sound like the rest of them.

Not that he didn't want to, of course. They were wonderful, caring for him and allowing him to join their safe haven of the underground -- "the belly," as Scaleface called it. He smiled softly, peering ahead and turning a sharp right, noting the marks on the walls he'd made earlier. _She _was content to help him at anything he asked; she always smiled when he arrived, as if he somehow made her happier by simply being there. It was enlightening just to feel that, making someone happy. He hadn't done it merely for weeks before he come down, shunning his friends and even his aunt, horrified at what the rest of them had become and why they had. But as he took another right and entered the second set of tunnels, lit by small candles welded into the walls, he knew that he was just being happy again, despite the fact that he felt that most of the Morlocks didn't like him for some reason. He'd asked Callistro about it one day, crawling in beside her in one of the small crooks that she used for her daily meditation, which helped her control her sight somewhat.

"Why do they hate me?" He'd asked, feeling his anger point at the daggers of bone beneath his skin and the slabs on his face hardening while the rest of his uncovered body convulsed in goosebumps. "Why me?"

After asking him repeatedly to leave, she had given up eventually, but the anger in her voice was still evident. "They don't hate you, Evan. They just are… skeptical, I would say."

"Skeptical of what? Its not like I'm going to turn around and stab them in the back with one of these." Pulling a small dagger from one of the joints in his finger, he blew it softly and it hit the end of the tunnel ahead of them. "I wouldn't. I _couldn't_."

"I know." She sighed, pulling her knees to her chin and staring at him thoughtfully. "But I don't think they know that. They're not as trustful --"

"--As me, because they've gotten the bad side of human nature," he finished for her, his voice echoing thoughtfully. "But haven't I, too? Isn't that what I'm down here for?"

"You tell me," she said shortly. "I'm not the one who lived your life for you."

"What do you mean?"

She shrugged. "Everyone has come to depend on each other in the society above, Evan. I did. You did. Your friends still do." She pointed down the hall, to where Scaleface and Stun were playing chess, chattering slowly and running fingers through each other's hair. "They didn't."

"That's not my fault."

"They've not led sheltered lives. Like you. Like the kids in the school you were at. Those kids, you, were lucky, are lucky; they have a place where there are others like them, where they don't get beaten for nothing they did, where they have quiet sessions on learning and how to control the things that God has blessed them with." She shrugged. "Or cursed, depending on how you look at it. My brethren here, they've never seen days where they've never been discriminated against. You have a friend up there, the one who's blue?"

"Kurt."

"Yes, him. He has a projector that allows other people to see a different boy, one not covered in blue fur." She laughed bitterly. "Your professor is providing the chances that we never had. If he'd been around twenty years ago, maybe… but no," she shook her head, standing above him and looking down, rolling her shoulders quietly. "They don't hate you. They just don't know how to trust anyone who's been a norm in life, who had the _probability_ they never had." A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, and she had run a hand through his bleached locks affectionately. "That I never had."

And before he'd been able to speak, she'd walked off, calling out that she was going to find a place where she could meditate in peace without the hassles of a teenager living in a sewer.

He frowned, now, touching the plates on the sides of his face and the spikes lining his spine. They were softened, sure, but they were still there and he knew, thanks to the poison, that he'd never be rid of them. A part of him mourned; he'd never be able to live life the same way again, the sheltered the life that he'd lived for all of his life. But a part of him was relieved; at least now, he wouldn't have to hide who he was. He wasn't a coward and he wasn't about to show his face in public, either; it was a sort of in-between place, one that he knew he could be in for the rest of his life. What chance did he have, now that it was gone, and never coming back…?

"Reminiscing _again_, man? Don't you ever get tired of that?"

He jumped, dropping the makeshift-board behind him, the bones prickling under his skin as he whirled around, tackling the figure hanging onto the porthole and calling a couple spikes up from his fingers. He felt coughing vibrating under the slabs and blinked. He knew that voice… "What the fuck?" Sucking the blades back into his skin and blinking at the figure below his sprawled fingers.

"Hey man," The boy below him said helplessly, showing a flash of white teeth and lifting his arms shakily. "What's up?"

"Ray?" He stood, offering a hand, confused, and the taller took it, standing. "What -- what are you doing down here, man?"

"Visiting you, obviously." The older boy's smile vanished as he stared down at his clothes -- civilian garb, at which Evan was surprised. "Aww man," Ray said, rubbing at the black T-shirt with obvious disgust. "I just bought this shirt yesterday!"

"Shouldn't you be… you know, at school?" 

"School? Right now?" He laughed, running a hand through his dyed hair amusedly. "Man, I wouldn't go back there if my life depended on it. They look at me, you know, like I'm a freak, and I hate that so much --"

"Yeah." Evan nodded, understanding the feeling, but feeling anger tinge his cheeks red. "And why are you here, again?"

Berserker looked at him curiously, his hands still brushing the last drops of the flush from his shirt. "I thought I told you, man. I'm visiting."

"I told you guys to leave me alone." His voice was hard and he was seeing red; the sharp points were piercing his skin, and his eyes narrowing, he pointed at the boy before him. "I'm fine. The Professor sent you down here, didn't he?" Spitting into the slush beneath their feet, he turned, his hand stopping the other before he could speak. "Tell him I don't want any help. I'm fine."

"Evan, wait."

He stopped, and turned, staring back at him angrily. "I don't need your charity, _Ray_. I'm fine."

"Yeah, and I suppose that the fact that you're carrying a thing at your side that vaguely resembles a skateboard means that you've forgotten everything, that you hate us all, that we were never good for you and that you're sorry you ever stepped foot above ground."

His cheeks flushed once more, but more from the combined emotions running through his head than the respected anger. He couldn't find anything to say and _that _angered him; where was his stupid wiseass side when he needed it?

"Listen," Ray said quietly. "I didn't come 'cause of the Prof. I came 'cause of you." He pointed to the ground by his feet, where Evan noticed a large black trunk and vaguely wondered why he hadn't seen it before. "See that? Yeah, man, that's from your room, sent by your _friends_. Mmmm," He murmured, nodding bitterly at the other boy's expression. "The ones you've forgotten about. And I can remember something about a long letter from your aunt, and some homemade cookies from Kitty, and some books from Kurt. Too bad you hate them; otherwise I'd give it to you along with the news that they're sending more. But no, I'll just send it back and tell them the message was not received with happiness and they're better off feeding a porcupine cheese muffins, how 'bout that?"

He knew his face was probably beet-red by now, and he sighed while Ray grinned. "Logan?"

"Logan."

"Great on wheels."

"He said you'd say that. Care to help me get this someplace light?"

"So… this isn't the Professor's idea?" He asked, panting, while they lugged the heavy trunk towards a better-lit area. "And what is _in_ this, anyway? Did someone send me rocks?" 

"Nope." Berserker wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead. "Although those cookies weren't a piece of cake, not that she'd make that. Said it would fall apart before it got here." They reached a torched hallway and he stood up, cracking his neck, and then looked at Evan quietly. 

"We kept it from the Prof., although we knew that he knew that we knew that he knew. He didn't stop us, and since we kept it from him even though we knew that he knew, he never said a word." The teenager shrugged. "He's pretty cool sometimes."

They lifted the lid and Evan looked into the dark interior, his teeth flashing suddenly as he reached in. "My _board_!" He hugged the fiery wood and grinned. "Man, I thought I'd never see it again!"

"Yeah, well in case you haven't noticed, Scott waxed it. Told me to tell you not to scratch it on anything _or else_."

"Or else what? He'll blast me to the next dimension? That thing Forge created'll do just fine, actually. Quick and painless. I'm fine, really." He put the board down gently, smiling radiantly as he laid a hand on it. "I won't do anything to it."

His clothes were neatly packed in thin plastic-wrap with a small note from Jean on front telling him to take care of himself; his basketballs and a small pump were lying near the bottom, along with a battery-operated light and his CD player. Kitty's cookies were wrapped in tinfoil -- they weighed a ton and when he tried to bite one he nearly broke his teeth while Ray laughed his head off. Kurt's books looked brand new; skating planners and a new calendar was slipped inside "War of the Worlds." He tucked the letter from his aunt inside the pocket of his tattered jeans, vowing to read it later. 

"So? What do you think?"

"Its awesome," he said sincerely. "Thank you."

"Aww, it was nothing, man," Ray said happily, clapping a hand on his shoulder. "Anything for a fellow mutie in need. And I was implored to do it, on account of the fact that I still haven't given you that Garbage CD back, yet."

"Yeah, where is that?"

"Oh, I dropped it off to a suffering orphan family in the middle of the streets. They need it more than both of us, having five children and all."

"You forgot it."

"Yes."

"Mmmm."

"You know I can't remember anything without being called upon twenty times."

"You remember when the Powerpuff Girls are on."

"That's pure choice. I believe that --"

"It's a brilliant show, full of leadership and pure, clean fun."

"I think too much about my obsessions, don't I?"

"Yes."

"Knew it."

"So… why you?" Evan asked, leaning on the trunk. "I mean, did you pull straws or something?"

"Seems like something Jean would have us do, doesn't it? Actually, she was pretty quiet, considering the circumstances. No, I volunteered. Can't have a fellow stuck down here in the deep dark sewers without a light, you know?" 

He frowned, staring at the boy in front of him with narrowing eyes. "You knew I was here. In this tunnel." He searched the face of the boy in front of him as it twisted guiltily. "No one knew, did they? Where I was? You didn't use Cerebro, you didn't have the Prof., and it only brings you to a five-mile radius. You knew. How?"

He swallowed, leaning against the wall and started to speak, when suddenly he was knocked over and on the floor again with the mush seeping into his hair, as he coughed. 

"_Berserker_…" Scaleface hissed, her scales plainly showing as she stared at him with narrowly slit hazel eyes. "Why are _you_ here, rage boy?"

He coughed again as her claws pushed him deeper into the crusty outline and he smiled weakly. "I'm here for Evan," he said quietly. She snarled and transformed further, staring at him with her pointed teeth dripping with saliva, her face livid with anger. 

"I knew it! You're here to take him back, aren't you?" Changing back into humanoid form, she wrapped her hands in her black gloves, growling at the boy she held under her foot.

"No --"

"Yes! He'll be gone and we'll never see him again! _You treacherous bastard!" _She spat in his face. He blinked, face convulsing in disgust. "You said you'd never leave! And now you've decided to take him, too, back to that school where all of you run around like chicken roasting on a stick --"

"You don't understand!" Ray bellowed, squirming under a firmly pointed claw. "I'm not here to take him back! I came to give him his stuff _back_!" Pointing at Evan, he gave her a half-moon, raising his arms helplessly. "I couldn't take him away from here if I tranquilized him, Scales. He's rooted and wouldn't leave you guys if his life depended on it."

She snorted, and pressed into his chest. "Scales, now, is it? At least the porcupine's faithful. Well, fine, go ahead; come down here like you own the place, strutting about waving your stupid ass tail in the back of the tunnels, oblivious to the fact that you've been gone, and you've been forgotten." Baring her teeth, she tied her hair back with the band on her wrist and glared down at him as she released her claws from his battered shirt. Laughing bitterly, she gave him one last kick and set off across the halls. "Everything that is gone is forgotten, rage boy. Remember that. It'll come in handy someday."

And she disappeared into the dark, whispers falling into the halls. 

"Man…" The boy whispered. "She hasn't changed a bit." Smiling up at the shocked face waving into focus in front of him, he smiled weakly and sat up halfway. 

"AND DON'T MAKE ANY SUDDEN MOVES, WE'VE GOT YOU TAILED, DAMMIT!" 

"Nope, not a bit. Care to help me up?"

----

Read and review? You know the button… the button is your friend, you know. 


	3. Loved

There's a sentence in here that's dedicated to Crash. See if you can find it… and if you were serious about it, I'd suggest either watching Monty Python or reading _Beyond the Pale_. Either one is within range of the concept.

****

----

Chapter Two: Loved

He flung himself on his bed; oh, it wasn't his, of course, not his and never had been his at all, but it was nice to call it that, no matter how horrific it caused to bring events in the future. It smelled of laundry detergent and dust and air, and he buried his face into the scarlet quilt and breathed in deeply. It smelled like home — or the home that wasn't a home, he reminded himself. It contradicted itself and he laughed into the fabric, realizing that he was comparing himself to a house and that it wasn't relieving him of the current task at hand. And he'd never had a home, anyway. This wasn't even a temporary placement.

Oh, he'd been sent to train them, had he? They hated him now, and he knew it, and he bounced around the place like a hyperactive kitten and scratched at their faces, meowing at them and daring them to correct him, dodging when they came at him like a coward. He was acting like a bastard and knew it, and rubbed it in their faces while kicking dirt behind him all the way and telling them to clean it up behind him. He was taking out his frustration on them, and it wasn't fair, and he knew it. 

They'd laughed at him for hours after he'd told them what he'd said. They knew as well as he did that he was a mouse; a stupid, curled tail, white mouse, that ran after a piece of cheese and got stepped on at every interval. It was a game of cat and mouse — here's the mouse, maiden, he's come to save you, oh? Well, yeah, my mouse daddy's gotta big, big team of stronger mice than me, you don't want me for supper, I'm thin and scrawny and tough. You wouldn't like me. 

  


__

I don't even like myself. 

He sighed, and rolled over, arching his back with his head deepening into the pillow as he yawned, massaging the bags under his eyes. He hadn't slept in days and it was beginning to show; his skin was paler than usual and he felt like just lying down in the middle of the floor and not waking up. The bed was too soft. It had been damaged when Lance had thrown his stuff out the window — he still hadn't forgiven him for that. Not that it mattered of course; why should he forgive them if they hated his guts and didn't bother to hide it? 

"Act like you don't like them, like their dogs underneath your feet, as they are. Give them reason to hate you. If they hate you, you'll be able to leave them all the better, Pietro. No guilt, no feelings, no hate, nothing. You'll be numb, and you'll love it, but won't feel anything at all. Anything at all."

__

You're so wrong, he nodded to the voice inside his head. _You're so wrong_.

Then why did he still follow that? Why did he still follow him, follow like a dog on a leash, and couldn't tear the voice out of his head through his ears and laugh at it like he did in his dreams — the ones unplugged by screams and people dying and fire, fire, covering everything. And people screaming and his skin scorching and the straw turning charred black. And the face, the face of an angel clothed in scarlet and black in front of him, smiling, taking him by the hand and running by his side, but touching out and burning his face until he screamed in pain. 

And John wondered why he flinched whenever he lifted a lead.

He didn't hate the others, either, of course. They'd provided the warmth he'd needed, the kindness he'd thrived on for the weeks he'd left for, missing people in a sense that blurred. They were cold -- the same kind of cold that was as he was, and they'd all provided the answers he'd asked at points that hadn't made sense. He'd been the same, just like them, he still was, actually; that cold, chilled persona that blocked out the harder things and just kept you safe that all you need to think about and dream. It just jumbled together in a sort of paranoia that enveloped all of them in the turning of the weeks. 

Sneak out, throw a blanket over Todd on the couch, turn off the TV, tiptoe past Wanda in the kitchen, her face plastered to the kitchen table, leave a note on the door, run, run, _run_. Fast. It never ended until he was there, panting with the sheer energy of it all and was grappled with the immense need to talk, and never stop.

It'd become a pattern. He'd run to the HQ, talk, jump up and down, get high off the ecstasy of running for that many hours until it all blurred together, seeing images he did not want to see. And he'd end up sobbing in the den watching the tape he carried in the pack and running it backwards, watching himself run back and forth like that little white mouse that inhabited his dreams and gnawed at the blackness that always came for him, there. That mouse would run, and run again, backwards and forwards, dropping the thought and relying on instinct to do the very thing he'd told himself not to do over and over and over. Didn't matter, of course, seeming as the action would already have been done by another and had been done. But guilt wasn't something he was accustomed to, and nodding now, he realized it hurt like hell. 

__

It was pure reaction! He stared at his feet, toes curling at the end of the bed; pale white against the scarlet red sheets, never failing that bright color even though he'd washed them continuously for weeks. It was an omen, like in the books he read late at night, stealing them from Rusty's bookshelf while the guy was out wrecking havoc and flipping through at thirty seconds per page, devouring each with nothing else to do. _Pure reaction, that's all! _

It did no good to deny it. His brain took over his feet at different obstacles of the day; get out of homework by speeding out of the class before the teacher even had time to speak; shake people up enough to get rid of their money; dodge projectiles aiming for his nose. But sometimes, it was different; his feet took over his brain, and he'd know what he was doing split seconds before he did it, and he couldn't do one thing to stop it. Reaction, of course, defines as something done by instinct.

His instinct was to run. Like Speedy Gonzalas. He didn't even have a sombrero. What a waste. 

Sighing once more, he rubbed his eyes and stood, shaking his head and glancing at the clock. 1:04. Frowning, he rubbed his eyes softly one last time and started down the stairs. The steps were rotting in some places -- he'd have to get Freddy to fix that. Scratching the back of his head, his frown deepened as he tapped the dusty banister with light fingernails thoughtfully, and continued down it, slower than his normal brisk pace. 

He entered the kitchen, noting his sister sleeping quietly, her head resting on her arms as her back arched softly with each breath taken. Filling a glass with water, he watched her as she buried her head deeper into the red-torn fabric that she always insisted on wearing. Zipping quietly into the chair in front of her and taking a large gulp, he laughed inwardly as he thought about their names. Wanda. Pietro. Scarlet Witch. Quicksilver. They were all apt to think; scarlet clothing, silver hair, outfits, faces. Which one did they claim to, the one that held fast, stuck like glue?

He really didn't know. 

Her face looked so much like his own it startled him, for a moment, after he brushed the last drops of the liquid from his mouth. He wondered vaguely for a second whether he was looking into a mirror, or maybe a screwed version of himself that wasn't to be. They were twins, and it showed, plainly. Her hair was flung over her face, like it did over his, and her legs were crossed even in her sleep -- damn it. A faint smile traced his cheeks as he beheld the thought of the probability of it all. _Oh, great, now I'm comparing myself to a crazy person. Yippee for me! _

But no_, _he reacted shortly, reeling back against the squealing chair as she moved her head, turning sideways, the movement tracing shivers down his spine. She wasn't so crazy anymore, was she? Far from it! Living memories of a life he'd never even come to dream of, knowing that such a thing would never come to be, living with the pain of the things that they had done to her. He knew it; he had watched it from the road, his hands in his pockets, his eyes flowing with tears, the stupid hope that she'd come back one day and come back! And he'd rescue her and they'd live in the happy world of their all-but-forgotten childhood with the dragons and the castles and the damsels in distress… 

He couldn't save her. He didn't know how and he'd forgotten why he'd set out to in the first place. She definitely wasn't a damsel in distress at all -- and now he was reminiscing like a Goddamn Shakespearean; angst this, and oh, angst that… 

__

Why should I even care? He asked himself, standing up, shaking some of the droplets of water in the glass over his head and zipping towards the door. _'S'not my fault she did those things… she should have listened to him when he told her in the first place._

He took another gulp of water, coughing hazardously as it went down the wrong pipe, being startled by the soft cries being called out from the rickety plastic table behind him. Reacting sharply, he streaked back to in front of the table and glared down at her face, his insides churning painfully.

"What did you say?" He whispered, knowing that she couldn't hear him.

A soft cry escaped from her lips as she frowned and twitched, her eyelids fluttering softly. "Stop… no, wait… unh…"

__

What the hell am I doing? He asked himself, but he didn't move. _She's having a nightmare -- so what? I have them all the time and I live… lived…_

"…Father…"

"Great," he muttered, wincing. He backed up and stared somewhat angrily down at her face and at the two large teardrops that fell down her nose as her face scrunched up, turning black as her mascara ran. "Just fucking peachy."

She wasn't as strong now that she'd lost all that stupid hate, and now with something like this stupid paranoia, she probably was going to drag the rest of them in it with her, wasn't she, the angsty bitch? She was something to be afraid of, sure, and he could add that to his list, but man, she was his sister. Flesh and blood, and no matter what Lance said, blood was thicker than water and he had to honor that. If for the sake of his own conscience. He had too much to worry about already. 

Pietro looked at the glass, half-empty -- or half-full -- and sighed. 

She coughed and spluttered as she rubbed her stinging eyes, feeling cold water wet her hair and making it sopping, falling off her chair, and then found herself standing before she hit the ground. Opening her eyes warily to the heavy sigh that her ears picked up, she stared at her brother, who was calmly leaning back in a chair with his feet on the table, his eyebrows perked and his eyes boring a hole into hers.

"Well?" He asked perkily after a moment of tense silence. "Aren't you gonna thank me?"

She almost laughed out loud. And here she was thinking that he was being gracious and caring, chilling her out of a dream that would have left her knee deep in humiliation the next morning. Not that it wasn't the same dream she'd had for weeks -- but such things weren't always defined on actions. And yet, here he was, same old, despairing brother with no way to go in the world, the coward, the rat, the boy she felt she _loved_ and didn't know why.

"Thank you for soaking me," she said, quietly, sincerely, giving a short outbreak of breath out of her nose, and laid a hand on the table between them. "Happy?"

"Not very."

She started, and looked up from her hand to the boy in the chair beyond her, who was looking at her with an expression she couldn't define, as always. Did he enjoy having her puzzle over him, enjoy having her live through sleepless nights trying to decode the jigsaw that was her brother? She knew he wasn't just plain mean; they were twins, however absent each other had been from the other's lives, and she could sometimes just feel his stare on her back and his mind somewhere else.

"Why not?" She asked, staring at him curiously, her head peaked, her blinks slow.

He shrugged. "Dunno."

"Alright, then," she said, a smile beginning to form on her face as she sat down on the plastic chair that was already beginning to dry, "something's wrong with you. You know everything."

"Not everything," he muttered under his breath, and she frowned, staring at him with general concern etched on her face. "I don't know everything," he said louder, tapping the plastic with his fingers in a row.

"Come to think of it," she said, "I don't know everything either. I just know that you know everything and have told each and every single person that I can think of several times before."

He gave a half-smile at that, and she felt a small surge of triumph. "Mmmm," he said. "Not everyone."

She laughed, and swatted at him with the glass that was laid out on the table. She felt strangely exuberant, happy, sort of even thrilled to be awake. It could have been relief, or maybe just the kind of high someone gets when they are awake in the middle of the night; it was a high on life. It felt good, to be happy for once, or at least something similar to it.

He just took the glass from her hands and zipped over to the sink, rinsed it, put it in the dishwasher, and was back in his seat within twenty seconds, his hair flipped over his face hesitantly. He slicked it back with a lick to his palm, and sighed contentedly. 

"Your power's so much cooler than mine," she said regretfully, watching him click his heels on the plastic once more. "I wish I could do that."

He shrugged. "Yours isn't so bad itself. You can… blast people! And… like… shoot people _through the neck_!" Shaping a gun out of his finger and thumb, he pointed at her and pretended to shoot.

"Oh, ah, you killed me," she said sarcastically, closing her eyes and pretending to fall back sharply. "I am dead. Poor me. I will never see the light of day again. Oh, boohoo for me."

"Yeah. Die, evil witch. Bam bam bam."

"But no, I'm serious," she said, tucking in her feet under her body casually. 

"So'mI. Why aren't you dying, witch? Ack, we'll have to burn her! -- Get the stake, I'll have to go wake up the Townspeople…"

"You're lucky, you know. Like at the carnival when you kept winning all the prizes in the whack-a-mole race. You were there before I'd even blinked. That attendant's face was _so_ messed up… and you gave me that giant purple teddy bear, remember? I got lemonade on it. I wonder what happened to that old bear?…"

He was looking at her uneasily. She frowned. "What? Don't you remember?"

"Yeah, sure, sis," he said, shrugging. Her frown deepened and she tapped his forehead, reaching across the table with a red draped and ripped arm.

"You can't possibly be serious! You were in my face about it for _months_!"

"Memories go quick in the mind of one as fast as I am."

"We went to that carnival with Dad, you can't tell me you don't remember, man! That was before that giant business trip he had to go on to Israel, he took us as a goodbye present! You threw up on the _Fireball_ --"

She stopped. His face was still blank. 

"You're impossible." She sighed, and got up, reaching for the black and read notebook accompanied by a large textbook. "I'm going to bed, now. You gonna stay here?"

He shrugged. "Might as well. Can't sleep, anyhow."

She peered closer at his face. "Yeah, I can see. Your eyes have _giant _circles under them. How about taking some sleeping pills?"

"Tried it."

"Music?"

  
  
"Yup."  
  
  
  
  
"T.V.?" 

"_Honestly_."

She shrugged, and moved the heavy books into her arms. "Yeah, well, try and perk up. We've got an English test tomorrow. The joy that is Advanced English has come to catch up to you, Pietro. Ever try studying for once?"

"I've read all the textbooks already. They're no challenge, really."

She smiled sadly and stroked an astray hair behind his ear, moving towards the door, waving with one pale white hand, much the same as his own. "Its all a challenge to you, isn't it?"

"You have no idea," he whispered to her back, as her figure swayed up the staircase with a hand to her mouth as she yawned quietly. "You just don't have any idea…"

He left the table with a flourish, after a minute, and scribbled a quick note onto a yellow sticky and stuck it onto the wall in the hall, grabbed Lance's jean jacket from the floor by the mat and shut the door quietly behind him. He took lengthy steps out into the pouring rain that soaked him from moment one, and stared silently at the figure in the yellow light of the attic above, stretching to close the window before it soaked the floor.

As Wanda trudged into the bathroom to brush her teeth at 1:35 that night, with the lightening storm raging over her head, she had no idea that that was the last time she'd see the boy she loved without a reason.

----

I should have one of those strange Snood rhymes here, the kind you get telling you to register if you haven't already, but I'm just too lazy. 


	4. interval

****

Interval: Windowpanes

__

——

The rain pattered against the windowpanes with ferocity, the drops connecting together in apt streams to form a river of tides across the smooth glass, and they watched, forlorn, their eyes sad and their mouths smiling, wilting like five month-old tortilla chips. 

They'd cleaned them last week, stripping the house bare until they found the proper lemony scented one, and had spent the day spritzing the stuff at the windows until they got bored and shot at each other. By the middle of the day they'd gotten five new bottles of the stuff and, convinced it would be the greatest thing that had happened to the town since ever, took the jeep downtown and sprayed it all over the stairs, trees, busses, bushes, people, and windows. By the end of the day they'd had five tickets each and grins permanently stamped on their faces, with their ears ringing from the multiple sirens blasting through their heads.

It had been Todd's idea, of course. He was stupid that way.

But she had known the rain would come. It smelled like it -- she could always tell when rain was coming, she didn't exactly know why -- but she didn't tell them about it, just stayed silent, not wanting them to find that she knew something they didn't know she knew. The tension was strong and clear and indifferent, even with the changes and the feeling that clung to the back of their minds and prickled like a pin that settled at the base of their spines. And she didn't want to break it once again, like she always managed to do, like she knew she would even if she managed to break away from this one. 

So they sat, and watched the rain, and she made them peanut butter and McNugget chicken-nugget sandwiches with M and M's sprinkled through like Freddy liked, and which the others ate because they had to. Fred just sat and watched soap operas while Todd snacked on bugs on the ceiling, and Lance worked late into the night. And the three just sat it out and watched the rain turn into rivers on the windows, all seeing the same thing while she watched the clock.

It was five years, two months, and five days since they'd left the slums of New York, and she still cried.

Not while the others were watching, of course. Just spaciously, after a while, into pillows and woolen blankets or while her forehead leaned against a wooden door, as she listened to the low tones of the voices floating up the stairs. She wasn't the kind of person who just broke down every time infiltrated her well-blocked barriers. How could she? There were people who fucking slept in their lawn trying to kill them, and they couldn't even walk out the front door without having organic tomatoes thrown at them (Freddy had noticed the particular label), and she was just like the rest and they knew it. And that wasn't something that bothered her as much as it should have. It didn't seem… real -- not real enough -- and now it was all shattered and she didn't know anything at all. He hadn't remembered it all, so she had counted time by the foster homes that they had rotated through before her father had found them again.

But he didn't remember that, even. And she hadn't known why.

But she still had cried, and for what she didn't know. Maybe it was because they'd all been letting her live in a dream -- a perfect dream -- one that could never happen in a million years, but then did, and she was told later that she was lucky. And she knew that dream worlds were for people who were crazy, even having not seen as much TV as Todd or Freddy. Days afterwards, watching TV, she'd just broken out sobbing while watching Carla be taken away half way across the world while Jake could do nothing about it. Hearing screams in her head and not being able to stop it, watching widows break and water-pipes burst around her head while the plastic table from the kitchen stuck itself to her bedroom ceiling, she'd blacked out screaming.

Lance had come home from work to find the house in smoking ruins, and the sister of the boy he'd once called his best friend sobbing on the floor with her hands to her ears and the radio blasting the Star Spangled Banner.

They'd told her anyway. He was gone, they'd explained, as she sobbed, while Todd had brought her tea and cakes that he made himself that weren't all that bad and she let him hold her, and Lance said that he had just given up and called every police station in the area. And that he wasn't coming back, probably, ever.

"But it said," she'd whispered into Todd's collar. "…It said…"

'Lance --

Going out for a run. Don't eat all the food, I don't have any money left to pay for more. Be back by tomorrow morning at latest. 

P.'

And now, when he was gone, it was worse. Because her stomach was churning and Todd was grinning too brightly and her head was pounding as she watched the rings of light that her eyes created on the churned scarlet sheets that he'd slept in. That she'd come to in the middle of the night, sometimes just watching him sleep in the same way she slept, with his arm over his eyes and his mouth firmly closed, his legs spread far apart towards the edges of the bed and his blankets spewn over his body.

He hadn't slept in that bed for weeks, and she didn't remember him sleeping that way.

But then, she didn't know which memories were right and which ones weren't, anymore. They were just jumbled, absorbing the information that she'd lived in a dream for too long and that the memories of her father…? Oh, yeah, those are fake too, babe, now let's go find your brother before he kills himself out there.

But she knew that it wasn't like that. He was already gone. 

And she didn't know where to look for him.

——

Reviews are nice. I like reviews, don't you?


	5. Pouring

****

Chapter 3: Pouring

——

"Fruitcake," Kitty Pryde said angrily, staring down at the sheets of yellow lying on the light-colored wood before her. Two textbooks sat near her arm as she glared despairingly at the work beneath her, showing the beautiful gold bold type print on their glossy covers revealingly. Modern Algebra, The American Heritage College Dictionary.

She hated teachers. They weren't human.

Yes. Yes they were. They were human and she wasn't, so that made it perfectly fine to search through her locker with suspiciousness born out of nowhere and pronounce the five stickers she had of various bands posted on the sides "inappropriate." And then it was perfectly fine to charge her five hours of detention and extra homework for it. 

__

For something I didn't even do! She groaned out loud and buried her face in her arms, blinking back the scalding hot tears that threatened to overflow and cascade down her cheeks. _I didn't know that we weren't supposed to paste posters -- everyone else was doing it--!_

"Kitty?" A hesitant knock on the wooden door behind her sounded quietly.

"Go away Kurt," she moaned, her answer muffled through her sweater. She got a taste of wool washed too many times. "I just wanna be _alone_."

He frowned at the door. "I'd like to, I really vould," he said sympathetically, "but Ororo told me to get you for dinner."

Silence.

"Zere's blueberry muffins for desert…"

Sniffle.

Sighing, he tried the door, found it was locked, and rolled his eyes. Teleporting inside with a flourish, he sat down lightly on her bed and laughed as she coughed and swatted the purplish air around them with a hand. "Come on," he teased, bouncing on the cushions, his tail moving wildly, "I vanna eat. I'm not going anyvhere with you acting like a sulking brat princess." Glancing at the bed behind him, he frowned slightly. "Have you seen Rogue? She vas not at training…"

"The term is _jappy_," she said angrily. "No, I haven't, she hasn't been up here since four. And since when did I give you permission to just barge in here, Kurt? You could have just asked --"

"Oh right, and you were just going to let me in." He snorted. "I don't zink so."

"Yeah, well…" She sat down on the bed next to him, and flopped down with a thump. "I don't like it when people barge into my business, you know?"

"Yes, I know. We've had zis conversation before, no?"

"Yeah." She hugged a purple and pink pillow to her chest. "But, like, no one _cares_ anymore. Its all just, "oh, I'm in a hurry, can't talk." She frowned into the plush. "Jean, like, totally knocked into me this morning and didn't say she was sorry."

Kurt scratched behind his left ear as it twitched slightly. "You're right, that iz worrisome. Miz Perfect, not saying sorry for somezink?"

"Yeah. Isn't that totally whacked? But she was just like, running down the hall in such a hurry, and she didn't even say anything at all, just 'shit.'"

The furry blue teen wrapped his hands around his throat and fell onto the cushions beside her, his tongue hanging out of his mouth and his eyes wide open. "Heelp…" he whispered, rasping. "I'm having a -- what do you call it here? -- heartattack!" Thrashing on the bed, he pulled the giggling girl beside him and grinned, still holding onto his neck. "Miz Perfect iz being a total bitch!"

"Kurt…" She said, flopping away, "stop it! Man!"

"Aw, come'on Kitty, have some fun --"

"You, like, furry blue thing, get _out_ of my room!" She growled at him and scowled, turning her face into an exact replica of Logan without a shagadelic beard. "Tell Ororo I'll eat in my room, if she forces me. I can just like, phase through the floor if she refuses, so tell her that, Mr. Wagner."

"Fine." Standing up, he brushed his clothes lightly off before sticking out his tongue and disappearing in a puff of purple smoke, leaving the smell of brimstone behind him. Two seconds he reappeared. "Here." He threw her an apple, and disappeared once again.

She moaned once more.

  
  
"Is there no _privacy_ in this house?"

----

She watched the moon rising quietly above the outlined trees in the forest behind her, resting her feet atop the stone bench, her knees tucked underneath her chin and her fingers sprawled across her bright pink shoes. They weren't hers, of course -- they were borrowed from Kitty. It was a gesture of acceptance of her "condition", and just the fact that she just wanted something new, something not dark, something light colored and bright, something not her so that maybe she'd stand out among the others like her for once. Lord knew there were enough Goths in the world.

The school grounds had been always like she remembered them; long halls, filled with people who hated her, people who wanted to spit in her face, people whose very notions of religion and vast spiritual beings clashed with their own beliefs of self preservations. She'd always thought that if they had anything to fear, it wasn't them, but themselves, like the old saying that adorned Professor Hank's walls near her seat -- we have nothing to fear but fear itself. 

__

As if they knew that, something whispered to her_. They don't even want to look at you, let alone know something that could shake their confidence about you._

"Shut up in there," she said quietly, rubbing her temple with a slight crease between her eyebrows. "Ah've got enough to worry 'bout without you guys bustin' a gut."

They didn't go away. She knew she should have told the Professor when she'd woken up, she knew he couldn't go into her mind without permission, she knew that he knew that she knew that he knew. And although it was complicated enough without the stupid voices chorusing in her head day and night, she knew that she could take it, so she clamed up. It was a war, they were living in, and they were all stressed enough, so why add more to it?

"Its not like they need more of it," she stubbornly hissed, reassuring the tight feeling sneaking up the back of her spine and settling in the back of her neck. "They've got their own problems. Ah can _handle_ it."

The small stone pillars that reached around her cast long shadows from the moonlight across the reddish-brown patio. Ororo's plants reached from their oval pots and clambered towards the tops of the towers and columns, the silken ivy and others wrapping themselves around the cylinders. The early rains that had come down earlier in the month had soaked them well, causing the amount of growth from their internal passages to nearly double. 

Recent rains had also soaked everything in sight -- the hard ground, people, plants, buildings, cars. The water had also delighted Ororo, whose happiness was easy to see as she mediated about Rogue's head, beyond the garden pillars and above her own bedroom window. Her white silvering hair flew out above her and crackled with electricity; she had told Bobby earlier when he had asked about it about the beautiful sounds that she heard when she flew there, just listening to the sounds of the storm. It was a pity, she'd said to her class sadly, sweetly, that all of them couldn't fly. That they'd love it. That they'd enjoy it like nothing they'd ever had before. 

The water ran overhead over the stone ceiling; she shifted her arms and wrapped the black cloak she wore around her shoulders over them, not surprised at the white gooseflesh that made itself known. The air was chilly, and she wasn't about to go and walk into the pouring rain in nothing but a cloak and a pair of bright pink shoes. The garden was close to the Institute, merely about thirty yards from the back, but the rain was hard enough that she didn't feel like risking it. So she just sat there, and watched it hitting the panes behind her, the droplets hitting the small dark specks dried onto the clear surface. 

She hoped the flooding wouldn't get into the basement levels again; the last time it'd happened, the last level before the earth had seeped in, malfunctioning the valuable instrument known as the washing machine and everyone residing at the Institute hadn't been able to wash their clothes for a week. It'd gotten to the point where Kitty and Amara had come up with a plan to douse their T-shirts in Dawn and rinse them in cold water in the bathroom tub. It'd worked, but Rogue had figured that it was worth the money and gone to the laundry mat near the school. But she wasn't a prep or a jappy bent on destruction should their clothes be destroyed. She instantly winced, taking back the thought hesitantly. She knew they couldn't hear her thoughts, not being telepathic, but as it was, honestly was the one last thing she had left in the world. 

Suffice to say, though, the flooding had ruined the good drain they had down there and had plugged it up so well it was weeks before the plumber could fix it. 

Sewers. _Aww man_, she thought with slight anxiety. _Hope they're doin' OK down there_.

She'd seen Ray off when he'd left three days ago, and she had helped him come back, too, her and Bobby and Amara. She and Bobby, together, by her draining just the slightest bit of his powers for two minutes without knocking him out, had managed to slide the heavy trunk towards Scott's car, which the recent graduate had begrudgingly let them borrow for the purpose of goodwill. Amara had welded wheels onto one of the old trunks that Jean had unearthed from storage, so that once he was on his own Ray would be able to move. After her job was done, the fiery girl asked Rogue quietly why she was helping them doing it, when all the others wouldn't.

She'd explained quietly that she'd done it because she _missed _the Spyke man. He was one of the few people she could tolerate in the world, and one of the few people who liked her back, and if he was gonna stay with friends, OK, just as long as he was safe. But he better not be forgetting them, because if he was she was gonna drain him 'til he keeled right over on his spike-adorned butt.

It was more complicated than that, but she let it go at that because of the stupid stubborn feeling creeping down her spine, for the sake of lying desperately when she really didn't need to. It just never went away, that urge, and one should always feed their urges before they completely devour you. She was suddenly glad she'd never taken up smoking. 

Ray hadn't talked much about it. She had a feeling he was mourning for something, although he wouldn't' say what. She let it go at that. 

It wasn't like she didn't have secrets of her own.

It was close to midnight, she realized, as she stared at her spiked watch behind her jangling bracelets. She'd better get inside before something woke Kitty and the girl realized that there was an empty bed next to her. Kitty was a light sleeper, not being fully recovered from the many things that had happened to her during the night, and the effect of having insomnia many times didn't exactly let her fall into a deep sleep, despite logic. She'd woken Rogue before, a lot, and they'd gone many times together before the "break of ze hate" as Kurt called of it, out to the diner down a couple blocks down, passing the Professor and grabbing a pass from the hall.

They couldn't do that anymore. There were people who slept in their yard, trying to kill them.

She shouldn't even have been in the yard after curfew, she realized, glancing warily at the bushes rustling in the wind behind her. Damn paranoia -- now it'd gotten her too, like it'd gotten to the younger recruits. On the trips she took to the bathroom during the night, she usually saw Roberto and Bobby's room light on, the light murmur of voices leaking under the door. All of them, all of the kids (they hated to be called kids -- God, even _Jamie _was a freshman now, but she called them that anyway), looked behind their shoulders at every turn. It had even got to the point where some of them pulled out mirrors before turning a corner. It was ridiculous that they did that, and even more ridiculous that it actually proved useful more than once.

She was constantly flooded with insufferable rage at their pale faces staring up at her every night from their homework at the table. Just this afternoon she'd found Jamie leaning against the door, all five of him, each of them adorned with at least one eye blackened and some blood running down from their noses. She'd helped him turn back into one and managed to support him until they got to the medical ward, indignant tears shimmering in her eyes and her gloved hands stretching the fabric as they crunched into a tense fist. The Professor had assured her that he'd be alright, it was only a couple of bruised ribs and a hard knock on the head -- but she saw it, the look in his eyes. Being untouchable made you think about people's minds more than their touch, for the sake of distracting anger. 

"God dammit," she cursed, wrapping her arms around her waist and grimacing at the shadows, stepping off the bench lightly and walking the few feet towards the entrance, which was slowly wetting the stone towards a light brown color. "He's jus' a kid. He shouldn' have ta go through that…" She trailed off in mid sentence, hearing a slight rustle behind her in the failing rain as she walked towards the back entrance of the school.

She flung around and crouched, kicking the bushes now in front of her with a roundhouse turn and hearing a pained "oomph" from the direct middle with satisfaction. Reaching into the foliage, she took hold of a collar and pulled, angrily, frustrated at her lack of hearing before. _Stupid rain, ruining mah concentration_…

Pulling the person close, almost to her face, she almost laughed out loud as she stared at the bedraggled form of Scott Summers. There would have been a time when she would have blushed and started fidgeting, apologizing and stammering, but she didn't have the energy or the pure happiness to dredge that feeling up to her cheeks and neck again. 

"Sorry," she said simply, letting go of his sweater collar as he coughed. "But yeh shouldn' have sneaked up on me like that, idiot."

"I know," gasped the boy -- she still thought of him as a boy, she couldn't help it -- "but you weren't in bed, and I was worried…" he trailed off as he went through another coughing fit shortly, and stood up straight slowly, sniffing and rubbing his forehead. "I thought you were someone… else… in there," he said quietly, nodding his head sideways towards the greenhouse. 

She decided to let this go, and concentrate instead on the sentence he'd said before, pretending to ignore his hesitation in his last spoken words. She stared at him with a hand on her hip, automatically suspicious. "_Jus' a minute_, mister, how'd yeh know Ah wasn't in mah bed?"

A faint blush appeared on his face -- hell, faint nothing, she could see it even with the faint rain pouring slightly in between them. Cocking an eyebrow, she tapped her foot expectantly, enjoying his falter with obvious enthusiasm even though she knew it was going to cost her later. He opened his mouth, blinked, closed it again, then started again with difficulty, "I don't know."

It was her turn to blink. "What?"

"I dunno," he mumbled softly, so unlike himself that she stared at him with vague surprise. 

"What've yeh done with Scott?" She asked, pointing at his tender stomach, and staring as he winced anyway. "Where's the stupid strong headed rebel idiot who "met" meh durin' lunch?"

"That was an accident," he said indignantly, the shaded glasses he wore slipping down his nose in the wet slop that was the rain. "I… I wasn't watching where I was going."

"Yeah," she said, the one eyebrow still up there, high. "It was actually pretty obvious, if yeh'll believe me."

"Mmmm." He gave an unintelligible grunt and straightened, the faint blush he wore fading. "You're to go inside, Rogue. You're supposed to be in bed, what if the Professor woke up and sensed you here? You're already --" He stopped suddenly, his face passive, and then moved quietly let out a breath through his nose.

"Already wat, one-ah?"

"Nothing." He gripped her arm and started steering her back towards the house. "We've got to get back, Kurt's already worried--"

"Ah'm not going anywhere," she spat, brushing his grip off her with disdain, "until yeh tell me wat yeh said." Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "Kurt's worried, is he? Well, that explains it," she hissed, "Ah'm on thin ice, aren't Ah? Isn't that wat you're talkin' bout?"

"Rogue, no, I --"

"Y'all keep talkin' behind mah back, sayin' those nasty things, and yeh obviously believe ah can't hear you, huh? Well think again, hotshot. Ah'm hearin' yah loud an' clear." She felt her vision blurring. She was concentrating too hard. "Ah'm a murderer and there's nothin' y'all can do about it."

The hood was down and her hair was soaking wet, her face tight and her lips pursed. Scott reacted as if slapped, and stepped back, his pale face contorting. After a minute, he tried again.

"Don't understand -- don't think you're a murder --"

She laughed high-pitched, her voice cracking. "No? Then wah does Miss Perfect call me that behind mah back, huh? Actin' like Ah can't hear her, like Ah--Ah'm just a statue at the dinner table?" She winced, feeling her sharp fingernails digging into her palm as she realized what she had just said, and at the look on her companion's face.

"Jean doesn't think _anything_ like that," Scott forced out, hotly, his face now flushed with anger. "You're delirious, Rogue. That fever you had this morning must be serious; we've got to get you inside before you catch anything else. You're already weak enough." He gripped her arm and despite the screeching that she commended to, he pulled her along until they reached the top of the back steps, the gutters pouring out reluctant spouts of water that tainted the sidewalk a rusty brown. He entered the access code and, ignoring her protests, shut the door behind them and pulled off her hood. 

"Come on," he said softer, noticing the shivering that convulsed her body as he gently pulled her towards the grand staircase on their left, "let's get something warm for you. You're freezing."

"…Rogue?" Sulfur and brimstone littered the halls, as Kurt Wagner bamfed to the space directly in front of his fellow soaking pupils, dressed in light green nightclothes complete with hole cut for long blue tail. His face was pale blue and his jaw was tight as he stared, worried, at his shivering sister. "Are you alright, _shvester_…? Kitty said you weren't in bed, ve vere verried --"

  
  
"Ah --" She mumbled, abashed at the look on his face, and at the flush creeping up to her cheeks. "Ah'm… fine, Kurt. Yeh don't have to worry about me."   


The boy in front of her shook his head. "Vhat, are you crazy? You were gone, ve thought you'd been kidnapped, Jean kept babbling about somethink about dinner rolls, Scott said he had a dream about you fallink --"

Kurt stopped short at the look on the older boy's face. Rogue smiled grimly and clutched the flimsy black blouse she wore against the cold, the tension making her laugh inwardly despite herself.

"So, pretty-boy had little a dream about meh?" She asked quietly, anger muffled and simmering directly below the surface, amusement bubbling around with the rest and the voices chorusing complaints in her head. "Well, that certainly explains a lot…"

  
  
"It isn't like he's in love with you or anythink," the younger boy said defiantly, ignoring the various gestures Scott was waving at him from behind and above Rogue's head. "He just woke us all up tellink us that you'd been kidnapped. Totally different circumstancees."

"Let's go to bed."

"Good idea, one-ah. I wanna be able to sleep with the knowledge that Ah've at least caused you enough discomfort fer one day."

__

Scott. Rogue. Kurt.

They jumped, startled, and she felt Scott's hand gripping her arm once again. "…Professor?"

__

Rogue, Kurt, meet me in the library right away. Scott, go wake up the others.

Bad. She could feel it, it was bad. Her brother was licking his lips nervously, as she took his hand and they started trudging up the stairs after Scott, too preoccupied to think of doing anything else. "…Professor? Is it -- somethink bad, sir?"

__

I'm afraid so, Kurt. Now, please, hurry.

Twenty minutes later the group stood around the study, the younger students rubbing their eyes and trying to look alert, and failing at it, while the older circle stood apart, their eyes wide and dark. Their eyes adjusted slowly to the dark library and the thousands of books that adorned the sides as the adults stood as silent and as waiting as the children themselves.

"Everyone," Professor Charles Xavier said to the team known as the X-men, his hands clasping together nervously and tightened, "Pietro Maximoff's body has been found near the clocktower near the school."

She barely had time to hear Kitty's choked scream before her stomach churned and her head felt light as she felt arms holding her up as she heard voices calling her name, and hands touching her face as she shook with the knowledge that she didn't want to know this.

And one voice in her ear, her mind, telling her that it wasn't quite over, yet.

----

Review? Oh, yes, I would like a slice of that, thank you. You're such a kind host.


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